Bookworm Press

Chapter 5 of my novel Love of a Stonemason. It is available both as Kindle ebook and trade paperback at Amazon and in different ebook formats at Smashwords. Average customer reviews: 5 stars.

Blurb and Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4

     The Nordfoehn, a dry northern wind, had been blowing on and off all night. This wind was the only disadvantage in the otherwise ideal environment. Once in a while, it had an invigorating effect on Karla, but most of the time it made her feel irritable, anxious, even depressed, and gave her a headache.
     “All right. I guess I wasn’t meant to paint outside this morning,” she muttered, as another blast swept down on her. She gathered her painting tools and put them into her studio. She didn’t feel like finishing the painting inside, so she grabbed her sketch pad, sat down by the window, and thought about what to draw. She made several attempts, but was unable to concentrate.
     It wasn’t just the annoying wind. Ever since yesterday, she had been thinking of Andreas, his sculptures, his kiss. It had been more than a kiss between friends and it had stirred up emotions she didn’t care for. After a series of unsuccessful short-term relationships, Karla had decided to stay away from men for a while. And then this fierce, irritating, but oddly endearing guy with his biting humor had to turn up and unsettle her again.
     And the thing with Sarah. What was the real reason behind Sarah’s visit? Was it really just to apologize and talk about art?
     Sarah and Karla had had an on-and-off friendship for several years. They exchanged ideas about art, went to museums and galleries together, and sometimes critiqued each other’s work. The friendship, however, had cooled when Karla had caught Sarah sleeping with one of her boyfriends.
     Was Andreas attracted to Sarah? He had shown concern for her but Karla didn’t think he had more than friendly feelings for her. But then you never knew. And why should I even care? Karla tossed her drawing pad aside.
     The wind was blowing fiercely now, howling around the corners of the house and slamming one of the shutters close. When Karla stepped outside to fasten it again, she saw that the sky was a deep clear blue, the wind having wiped away all the clouds.
     Karla sat down again and forced herself to get a least one drawing done. She picked up her pad and a piece of charcoal. Almost automatically, she began to sketch Andreas, as she remembered him sitting in front of the stone slab. She realized she was out of practice drawing human figures, having focused mainly on landscapes. After several attempts, she ended up with a sketch she liked. It depicted his muscular body bending over the stone, a strand of hair hanging into his face. She left out the mask and goggles, wanting to show his face in profile.
     Perhaps she would give it to him on Saturday. Feeling more at peace again, she was ashamed of her anger at Sarah. She was her friend, after all, and Karla hadn’t even called her to find out how she was feeling after her breakdown at the opening. She picked up the phone and dialed Sarah’s number. It took a while before she answered.
     Sarah’s voice sounded tired. “I’m trying to take a nap.”
     “Sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you; I just wanted to know how you were,” Karla said.
     “I’m okay.”
     Sarah’s distant and cool voice irritated Karla. You make an ass of yourself at my first opening. You could at least apologize. “I heard you went to see Andreas.”
     “Yes. I did. I wanted to apologize.”
     “Oh, I see. Was that the only reason? You were all over him at the opening.”
     “So? What do you care? Are you two an item or something? How did you find out I went to see him?”
     Karla felt anger rise in her like bile. “He told me. He’s my boyfriend, Sarah.” Gee, what a lie.
     It was quiet for a while at the other end. Karla could hear Sarah’s breathing. Then her voice again, friendlier now. “Karla, look, he’s great. I felt really low the last few days. Just talking to him made me feel better. I have no intention of interfering in your relationship. You’re lucky to have him as a boyfriend.”
     Karla started to feel ashamed but she still distrusted Sarah. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
     “Oh, Karla, why bring up that old stuff. You weren’t even interested in the guy anymore.”
     “Yeah, but you didn’t know that when you jumped in the sack with him.”
     “Karla, you know what? You’re so fucking petty.”
     “Sarah, let’s not fight.” It was too late. Karla heard the click at the other end.
     Why can’t I keep my mouth shut? Karla lowered her head on her arms and sighed. Not only had she lied to Sarah about her relationship with Andreas, she had begrudged her friend the little encouragement he had given her as an artist.
     Perhaps Sarah was interested in Andreas. At least she was honest about her feelings. Karla, on the other hand, had appropriated Andreas, although she wasn’t even sure how she felt about him or how he felt about her. He had kissed her, he wanted to meet her again, but that was all. And Karla’s feelings for him? She liked him, she was even attracted to him, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to get involved.

     The following morning, it was raining, the Nordfoehn having collapsed the night before. The rain felt soothing after the harsh, dry northern wind and the sky was a lively display of towering dark clouds. The mountain tops were hidden behind layers of white mist. Stormy landscape, Rembrandt, Karla thought as she scanned the horizon. It had cooled off somewhat and the air smelled of burning wood from the neighbor’s oven.
     Later that day, Karla made an effort to clean out the storage room, which was overflowing with canvasses of half-finished and finished paintings as well as sketches on paper. She resisted this periodic chore. It forced her to decide which pieces she considered worth keeping and which she wanted to discard or paint over. Not an easy task; it required ruthless honesty and a discerning eye.
     Karla kept pulling paintings out of storage, putting them back in, pulling them back out again. In the process, she came across the canvass with the dark woman she had been struggling with. She glanced at it, shook her head, and decided to hang on to it. One day, perhaps, she would be able to finish it.
     In the evening, there was a pile of discarded sketches in the recycling bin and several canvasses that could be reused. The clean-up gave Karla a feeling of freedom. She took a deep breath and stepped outside to watch the evening settle in. It had stopped raining and the heavy clouds had thinned. The southern sky was pink with tints of purple and the evening breeze brought a whiff of wet grass.



Here is the second chapter of my novel Love of a Stonemason. It is available both as Kindle ebook and trade paperback at Amazon and in different ebook formats at Smashwords. Average customer reviews: 5 stars.

Blurb and Chapter 1

The sky was a clear blue after the thunderstorm of the past night with only a few fleecy white clouds in the north and streaks of sulfur-yellow etched on the horizon in the south. The air felt fresh and clean. It promised to be a beautiful early-summer day.
      Karla stepped outside and inhaled the sweet scent of the wisteria bush in the courtyard. However, no matter how hard she tried to enjoy the day, she felt out-of-sorts and depressed. Her nightmare, her inability to finish the painting she struggled with, and the unsettling feelings after her near-accident the day before all seemed to have banded together and attacked her, full force, in her sleep.
     Painting didn’t help, either. She wanted to go back to her colorful landscapes, drown her dark mood with globs of fiery paints but the newly stretched canvas merely stared back at her. It was glaring in its whiteness, hostile. Finally, Karla gave up trying to work. She would pay a visit to Lena and get some roses for her mother’s grave.
     Lena cultivated and sold roses and was known all over the valley and the nearby cities for her beautiful rose fields. She had been one of Karla’s closest friends for many years. Having known her mother well, Lena had often babysat Karla when she was little. Karla had spent the first five years of her life in the Maggia Valley and had moved north to live with her aunt after her mother’s and grandmother’s death. After Karla’s aunt had passed, Lena had encouraged her to move back to the Vallemaggia and had invited her to stay with them until she found a place of her own. Lena and her husband Luigi and their four children had become like a family to her.
     On the way to Lena’s, Karla passed by the rose fields which were in full bloom, although some damage from the thunderstorm was visible. A few of the bushes had been knocked to the ground and the field was strewn with rose petals, which looked like big confetti. But even so, the flowers were dazzling. Shades of red, from crimson to purple to mauve, different hues of orange, multicolored roses as well as the simple white and yellow ones sparkled in the sun and formed a pleasant contrast to the dark green of the pines in the background and the vineyards on both sides.
     Normally, Karla couldn’t walk by the rose fields without stopping to admire the abundance of colors. Today, though, she barely glanced at the flowers, although their sweet fragrance was almost overpowering.
     Karla found Lena in the large shed next to her home, busy preparing for the upcoming market. She was putting roses on the conveyor belt of a machine that separated the flowers by length, so they could be arranged into bouquets more easily. Lena was a stout motherly woman in her late forties with lively blue eyes and thick brown hair streaked with grey.
     “Hi there.” Lena gave Karla a quick smile, then continued to watch the roses glide by. She occasionally picked one up and set it aside, then turned off the machine. “How are you?”
     “I don’t know. I got up on the wrong side of the bed.” Karla blinked as the tears rose to her eyes.
     “Oh?” Lena peered at her, then took her by the arm. “Come on, the coffee is still fresh. I need a break.”
     They went inside and Lena poured them each a cup. She sat down next to Karla and put her arm around her. “So, tell me, what’s bugging you?”
     The motherly gesture broke the dam that held back Karla’s tears. All the pent-up emotions of the past couple of days flooded her. Lena waited patiently until Karla was able to stop crying. She hugged her and gently patted her back, as if to comfort a child. “What’s the matter, Karla?”
     “I just had one of those miserable dreams again and yesterday I almost got run over by a car,” Karla finally managed to say between sobs. She told Lena of her near-accident, her inability to deal with one of her paintings, the nightmare. “It all just brought it back again. I’m lonely; Anna died, I have no family left, and …” She burst into tears again.
     “Honey, I know, it’s hard. But why don’t you come to us when you feel bad? You know, you always have family here. You’re not alone.”
     “Thanks, Lena. I know. It’s just one of those days.”
     “Talk about family. Have you heard from your father lately?” Lena gently brushed a strand of hair out of Karla’s face.
     “Not in while. It’s my turn to write. I just haven’t been up to it. I’ve run out of things to write to him about. Problem is, we haven’t seen each other in ten years and you start to lose track.”
     “I understand. Perhaps, you should plan a trip to see him.”
     “Yeah, I know. I should.” Karla wiped the tears from her face. “I’ve been busy saving my money for painting, but I guess I could stay with his family. He even offered to pay for my plane ticket. It would be great to visit Peru again.” Karla hugged Lena. “Thanks for listening to me. It does make me feel better.” She managed a weak smile and got up. “I actually came down here to get some roses for Mama’s grave.”
     “Pick as many as you want. And take one of the vases here.” Lena reached for a vase on the kitchen cabinet and handed it to Karla. “And if you’re up to it, come and help me bake this afternoon. Luigi is with the lambs and the kids are in school. I could use some help. I’m making a few loaves of braided bread. Unless you’ve painting to do?”
     “No. Baking sounds wonderful. Just what I need, to get my mind off my problems.”
     Karla walked the short distance to the cemetery. The sweet aroma of her bouquet of roses brought a smile to her face. It’s going to be a good day, she tried to convince herself.
     The river Maggia on the other side of the street roared with gusto, spilling its waters in swirls and rapids toward Lake Maggiore. The noble chestnut trees in front of the graveyard were in full bloom and their long yellowish catkins exuded a strong pungent scent. Scattered by the wind, the abundant pollen of the male blossoms covered the ground and graves with a film of fine golden dust.
     As Karla climbed the few steps to the graveyard, she brushed against an overhanging branch of a wet hazel bush that showered her with a rivulet of water. She spotted two men working on the plot next to her mother’s grave. One of them was in the process of leaving. He loaded a cart with tools and pushed it toward the exit. The man who stayed back was crouching before a freshly planted plot, wiping off what seemed to be a new gravestone. A shock of dark hair hung over his face. When Karla put down the vase with the roses on her mother’s grave, he stood up.
     They stared at each other.
     “You?” Karla asked.
     “Oh, my god, it’s the woman who jumps in front of moving cars.” A sarcastic smile teased his lips as he glared at her with his green cat eyes.
     “It’s the maniac who ignores pedestrian zones. What are you doing here?”
     “I’m your local stonemason. I put up one of those.” He brushed a strand of hair from his forehead and pointed at the newly planted stone.
     The gravestone stood out somewhat from the others. It was made of polished grey-green gneiss. The top edge, however, was left in its original unpolished shape, giving the tombstone an artistic flair. The text was carved in a simple italic font and the only decoration was a bunch of grapes chiseled into the stone.
     “That’s beautiful,” Karla said.
     “Thanks.” He pointed at the stone on her mother’s grave. “Someone close to you?”
     “My mother.”
     “Oh, sorry.” He squinted his eyes and looked at the stone more closely. “That was a long time ago; you must have lost her early.”
     “Yes, I was five when she died. A car accident.”
     “A car accident? Jesus. Seems to run in the family.”
     Karla glared at him. “I don’t think that’s funny at all. You sure have a warped sense of humor.”
     “I’m sorry, that was stupid. I didn’t mean it that way. It just struck me as a strange coincidence. I almost ran you over and now … I apologize. And I’m sorry I yelled at you yesterday. I was wrong. I was driving too fast.” He stretched out his arm.
     Still angry, Karla hesitated. But seeing his imploring look, she gave in and shook his hand. It was large, but in spite of the rough work his palm felt soft. “It was my fault too. I should’ve been more careful,” she admitted.
     She was struck again by the unusual color of his intense green eyes. They changed from verdigris to shades of blue according to the way the sun touched his face. He was handsome, in a rough kind of way. I’d like to paint him. Realizing she was staring at him, she quickly averted her gaze. A breeze kicked up, buffeting the leaves in the trees and tugging at her hair.
     “Look, we started out all wrong. Can we just forget about yesterday? And go out for coffee or a movie or dinner or something? My treat.”
     “You sure move fast. Yesterday, you called me an airhead and now you ask me out?”
     He gave a guttural laugh. “Well, yesterday was yesterday. I’m glad I didn’t run you over, a beautiful girl like you. By the way, I’m Andreas.”
     “Karla.”
     “So, what do you say?”
     “I don’t know. I’m really busy this week. I’m preparing for an arts exhibition on Friday, but if you’re interested, here is an announcement.” Karla pulled a card out of her purse and handed it to him.
     “Oh, that’s right; you’re an artist. Great, I love paintings. Had to do quite a bit of drawing as part of my training.” He studied the card that showed a couple of Karla’s paintings. “Interesting work.”
     Karla liked the sound of his voice, deep and throaty, even a little tender, now that he wasn’t yelling or making sarcastic remarks. “So what do you do aside from making tombstones?”
     “All kinds of stone work but also some metal sculptures. I just can’t make enough money with that kind of stuff yet. So it’s mainly tombstones for a living. Talk about making a living, I better get back to work. I have to plant a few more of these at another cemetery.” He pointed at the gravestone. “Three people died the same week.”
     “Oh? Well, you should be pleased.” Karla chuckled.
     He raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
     “Good business for you. More tombstones.”
     “And I’m supposed to be the one with the warped sense of humor, huh?” He gave a snort and laughed, then picked up the rag with which he had wiped off the gravestone and stuffed it into the back pocket of his tattered jeans. As they walked toward the exit, Karla noticed his beat-up Fiat parked on the other side of the road.
     “Okay, see you Friday.” He lightly touched her arm.
     Karla nodded. “Drive carefully. Don’t run over any pedestrians,” she called after him.
     He turned around and opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind, shook his head and grinned. He waved at her as he got into the car. The engine started right away this time.
     Karla looked after him as he drove away. He must have had his muffler fixed.

Lena’s rustic kitchen looked like a bakery. The heavy cherry wood table was covered with pans of dough and a thin layer of flour. On the walls hung black iron pots and the typical copper bowls and pots popular in the south of Switzerland. Lena was busy kneading the dough for braided bread.
     “It smells delicious.” Karla inhaled the warm yeasty scent.
     “Cut yourself some. I made this one earlier.” Lena pointed at one of the finished loaves. “There is butter and jam over there, and I just made fresh coffee.”
     “You don’t have to tell me twice.” Karla cut a thick slice of the freshly baked honey-colored loaf. The inside was buttery yellow and soft and Karla gave a sigh of pleasure as she bit into a piece slathered with Lena’s homemade blackberry jam. “Heavenly.”
     Lena gave her a cursory glance while kneading the dough vigorously, occasionally slapping it onto the table to make it smooth and springy. “You seem to be feeling better.”
     “Yeah, I am.” Karla licked a drop of jam from her finger, then put on one of Lena’s aprons. She picked up a slab of dough and began to knead it. “Guess what? I ran into the guy who almost hit me with his car yesterday.”
     “You’re kidding? Where?” Lena divided her piece of dough into three equal parts and began to braid them.
     “At the cemetery. He was putting up a gravestone. He’s a stonemason. His name is Andreas.”
     “Andreas O’Reilly?” Lena looked up, then dipped her hands into the flour and continued to pull and punch the dough.
     “I don’t know his last name. You know him?” Karla stopped kneading and stared at Lena.
     “Yes. He made a few gravestones for our cemetery. In fact, he carved my grandmother’s stone a couple of years ago. He does beautiful work. So he is the guy who almost hit you? Strange. He doesn’t seem like the careless-driver type.”
     “I think we were both at fault. At first, I thought he was a real jerk, but today he seemed more pleasant. What do you know about him?”
     “Not that much, just the little bit he told me or I heard about him. Some problems with his family, I don’t know any details. He was raised by his aunt and uncle. He’s quite an accomplished sculptor, considering how young he is. He was hired to put up some stone sculptures in the area.”
     “He said he was coming to the opening on Friday. He asked me out,” Karla said.
     “You must have made quite an impression on him.” Lena chuckled.
     “I don’t know.” Karla stopped kneading again and glanced out the window. “I’ve had more than my share of questionable dates. I’m not too eager to get involved with anybody. I don’t have much luck with men. Anyway, we’ll see if he shows up on Friday.”
     “You’re not paying attention, Karla. Come on, let me finish.” Lena smiled and shook her head. She grabbed the hunk of dough that Karla had been working on. “Why don’t you apply the egg wash instead?”
     “Sorry, Lena, I’m not much help today.” Karla sighed. She removed the towels from the loaves, which had risen to full size. She gently poked one of the plump, smooth braids with her finger, then picked up a baking brush, dipped it into the mixture of water and egg, and glazed the tops of the breads with even generous strokes.
     “Nice job.” Lena pointed at the loaves Karla had just finished. “You definitely have more talent handling a brush than kneading dough.” There was a cracking sound outside. Lena looked up. “Another thunderstorm?”
     Karla watched through the window as the wind carried off a small branch of the apple tree behind the house. She felt the familiar pressure in her head. “No, not a thunderstorm. The wind is changing.”

Here is the first chapter of my novel “Love of a Stonemason.” It is available both as Kindle ebook and trade paperback at Amazon and in different ebook formats at Smashwords. Average customer reviews: 5 stars.

Blurb: The young painter, Karla Bocelli, is no stranger to loss. When she was five years old, her mother died in a car crash in the south of Switzerland. Her Peruvian father lives at the other end of the world, and a year ago, her aunt and guardian passed away. Now, at age twenty-four, Karla almost gets hit by a speeding car. As if this wasn’t fateful enough, Andreas, the driver, turns out to be a sculptor and carver of tombstones. In spite of his profession, Andreas is anything but morbid. Quick-tempered and intense, he exudes a rough-and-tumble energy. After a tumultuous start of their relationship, Karla comes to see in Andreas the “rock in her life,” the perfect antidote to her fears of abandonment and bouts of depression. Andreas, however, wrestles with his own ghosts: an alcoholic father who abused him as a child and his own fits of anger. Together, the two artists must confront the demons that haunt them.

Karla Bocelli hated the painting. She had worked at it off and on during the past year and never managed to finish it. But no matter how much she disliked it, she couldn’t convince herself to destroy it. It seemed to haunt her.
     It was warm and muggy in early June in the south of Switzerland. Patches of mist hugged the mountains behind Lago Maggiore. Karla clasped her artist’s portfolio under her arm and brushed a strand of hair from her damp forehead. She was on the way to the old part of Locarno, thinking, once again, of the troublesome picture.
     She saw the car just as she stepped into the crosswalk. An old beat-up Fiat screeched to a stop within a few inches away from her. Karla jumped back and dropped her portfolio, spilling its content onto the pavement. Her heart thudded and she took deep breaths, trying to calm the queasy feeling in her stomach. That smell. Burnt rubber.
     A young man got out of the car and stared at her, stunned. “Are you all right?”
     Karla, still dazed, nodded. She bent down and began to pick up her drawings. A few pedestrians stopped but when they realized that nothing major had happened, they walked on.
     The driver’s dark voice rose to an angry pitch. “Jesus Christ. What’s the matter with you? You practically threw yourself in front of my car. I could’ve killed you. Are you suicidal or something?”
     “I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching.” Karla slid the papers back into her portfolio.
     “Yeah, well, that’s obvious. Wake up, for heaven’s sake.”
     His belligerent voice angered Karla, who was gradually regaining her composure. She stood up, flipped her long dark hair back over her shoulders, and faced him. “I said, I was sorry.”
     He was tall, broad-shouldered, and husky, with longish dark tousled hair and green eyes, which now glowered at her. He must have been her age or a little older, perhaps in his mid twenties. As Karla continued to pick up her drawings, he approached and bent down to help her.
     “You’re an artist?” he asked in a friendlier tone as he looked at one of the charcoal sketches.
     “Yes.” Karla snatched the paper out of his hand.
     “I hope your pictures aren’t ruined.”
     “What do you care? Why do you have to drive like a maniac?”
     “Great,” he shouted. “Now it’s my fault?”
     “This is a pedestrian zone, in case you haven’t noticed.” Karla grabbed her portfolio and stepped back onto the sidewalk. Her heartbeat had slowed to almost normal but her knees still felt wobbly.
     “Do you always jump in front of moving cars without looking?” He turned around and walked away. “Airhead,” he mumbled, shot her a last angry look, got into the car, and slammed the door. He revved the engine which died several times. The car finally started and he drove off, leaving a cloud of stinking smoke behind.
     “Jerk. Perhaps a new muffler would help. Never heard of air pollution?” Karla crossed the street after carefully checking the road for traffic. Still shaken, she made her way through the old part of Locarno toward the art store to drop off her drawings to be framed for the upcoming opening.
     Karla was a young artist whose first exhibition of her paintings and drawings opened the following Friday. The gallery belonged to a friend and patron of hers. Silvia and her husband were art lovers and devoted some of their time and money to help fledgling artists show their work.
     Having recovered somewhat, Karla was able to take in the sights of the old part of this city she loved: the boutiques and small shops along the narrow cobblestone streets, the quaint houses painted in ocher, orange, and pink, the piazzas with their pots of cornflowers and red and white geraniums, the small simple Romanesque and the more ornate Baroque churches. Karla inhaled the mixture of scents so familiar to her from her childhood when she came here often with her mother and grandmother: the smell of espresso, of grilled meat and fish as well as herbs and spices from the restaurants, stores, and coffee bars.
     When Karla arrived at the gallery after dropping off her drawings at the art store, she looked through the tall shop window at the row of paintings on the wall. It was only now that the momentous event began to sink in. She was overcome by a surge of pride and excitement. My first exhibition. She knocked on the window. Silvia, who was already in the gallery moving chairs and folding tables, turned around and waved at her.
     “So, what do you think?” Silvia stepped back and motioned at Karla’s paintings. She was a woman in her fifties with a wild mane of graying hair. Her outfit was a mixture of femme fatale and hippy–low-cut, tight black top and long flowery skirt.
     “Great. I like the way you arranged them.” Karla studied the row of pictures. There were a few watercolor and acrylic landscapes with a calm Zen-like feel while many of her oil paintings exploded in fiery reds, yellows, and browns with a volcanic intensity. In addition, Karla had chosen a few more experimental pictures: landscapes which clashed with foreign objects, such as scrap metal, a computer sticking out of a flower. She wanted to strike a balance between paintings that might appeal to regular visitors and those that would receive more attention from art collectors.
     “I hope somebody shows up.” Karla sighed. “I’ve been looking forward to this, but now I’m getting nervous. Do you really think I put the right paintings up?”
     “Sure you did, they’re great. Relax.”
     “The last few of my drawings should be framed and ready by Thursday,” Karla said.
     “Good. I left space on the back wall for them. I ordered the snacks and the wine. So we’re ready. Don’t forget the bios. And don’t worry, the opening will be fabulous.” Silvia gave Karla a hug, enveloping her in a cloud of patchouli perfume.

By the time Karla arrived at the stone cottage she rented in the small village at the beginning of the Maggia Valley, the air had thickened. In the direction of Saint Gotthard, the mountain that divided the south from the north of Switzerland, towering heaps of dark clouds were churning, first signs of a thunderstorm.
     Karla filled the espresso pot with water and finely ground coffee and set it on the stove, then went into her studio, a room with a skylight and a window facing south. The owner, an artist himself, had the skylight installed since the windows in this typical southern Swiss house were small and the lighting wasn’t good enough for painting. Sitting in front of her easel, Karla began to mix her paints. The picture she was working on was the one she had been thinking about earlier that morning when she almost got hit by the car.
     The half-finished oil painting was different from her normally intense colorful landscapes. It was a stark, somber picture, almost devoid of color. It showed the stylized outline of a woman in black, a dark, lonely figure standing at the edge of the canvas who covered her face with her hands. The rest was empty space, except for a glowing spot of color at the right upper corner.
     Karla had started the painting after the unexpected death of her aunt the year before. She had been Karla’s only remaining blood-relative, aside from her father, who lived in Peru and whom she barely knew. Her aunt had raised Karla since she was five years old after her mother and grandmother had been killed in a car crash. She and Karla had been very close and her death had been a devastating blow.
     Scanning the picture with half-closed eyes, Karla picked up a brush, dipped it in a mixture of grey and green paint, then stopped to examine the painting again. The slender, dark figure looked forlorn and lost. Not even the color in the back was comforting. It was orange-red, the sun of the evening, which had lost its warmth.
     Why do I even bother with this thing? Frustrated with the timid and self-effacing woman in the painting, Karla tossed a sheet over it and put the picture once again into the storage room next to her studio.
     The espresso pot hissed on the stove and the scent of fresh coffee filled the room and dispelled the smell of paint. Karla poured herself a cup and decided to drink it black; perhaps it would ease the tension in her head. The slight headache she had woken up with had intensified during the day, in part due to the change of air pressure before the storm and in part, perhaps, because of her tumultuous morning with the young man.
     Karla stood by the kitchen window, sipping her coffee, savoring its slightly bitter taste. She tried to picture the man again, his muscular figure, his longish dark hair and, particularly, his expressive green eyes. Too bad they hadn’t met under more pleasant circumstances. In spite of his angry outburst, she felt a certain curiosity about him.
     A breeze kicked up and shook the azaleas in front of the house. The large creamy-white and red flowers of the horse chestnut trees swayed back and forth. Karla stepped outside. It smelled of rain, damp and musty. The meadows in front of the house were filled with blue, purple, and yellow wildflowers and down the hill the birches, ashes, and tall hazels along the river Maggia leaned into the wind.
     Karla went back inside and began to prepare a canvas for a new painting. She pulled the cloth tightly across the stretcher bars with the help of canvas pliers and fastened it with staples. After covering the canvas with a base layer of gesso, she set it aside to dry. She turned on her computer and printed out a stack of bios for the exhibition.
     Outside, daylight was fading fast as smoky gray storm clouds were beginning to darken the sky. After a quick dinner of soup and bread topped with cheese, Karla tried to do some sketching but nothing came of it. She was tired and her head still ached. She took an aspirin and went to bed early. Listening to the wind whooshing through the trees, she fell asleep.

Later in the night, Karla woke up drenched in sweat. The bursting of broken glass and a woman’s desperate scream for help were interrupted by claps of thunder. At first, she was unable to distinguish between the noises in her dream and the sounds of reality. A whiff of burnt rubber and acid hung in the air.
     Karla peeled back her down comforter and sat up, pushed herself to the edge of the bed, and lowered her feet to the floor. She brushed a tangle of hair from her wet forehead and took a deep breath. It had been the same nightmare she had suffered from since childhood, but the thunder and lightning were real. The grandfather clock in the next room struck eleven times. She must have just fallen asleep when the thunder woke her.
     Karla got up and looked out the window. Lightning lit up the sky and the shadows of clouds swept across the meadows. The trees bent over and swayed in the gusts of wind. She went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, then sat by the window. Sipping the cold liquid, she tried to squelch the shreds of troubling images her dream had left her with: the mangled bodies, the blood, the broken glass, the fire.
     “Mama?” Karla whispered into the dark. Her eyes filled with tears. “All I have of you is a scream for help. I barely even remember what you looked like.”
     There was no answer, only the thunder in the distance. Karla got up and opened the door to the patio. She stepped outside as it began to rain. First, large individual drops hit her arms and face, then the clouds burst. She bent her head back, closed her eyes, and let the rain pound on her face for a few seconds, enjoying the harsh cleansing sensation. The water soaked through her T-shirt. She began to shiver and went inside, pulled off her top and grabbed a towel to dry herself. Back in bed, she listened to the now steady and peaceful sounding rain and fell asleep again.

A fortunate find:
“I am only one-quarter of the way through this big, beautiful novel, but am enjoying it so much that I wanted to post a review.

LOVE OF A STONEMASON gives readers Europe and South America. A few examples: the Nordfoehn, a dry northern wind; the turning of the seasons in Switzerland; the look and feel of Toro Muerto, a mysterious South American site containing hundreds of carved rocks. Descriptions are vivid without being overwritten. Christa Polkinhorn makes me feel as if I know these places where I have never been.

But my enthusiasm for the novel goes beyond its very considerable achievements in description. I like Karla and Andreas, the main characters. I can imagine having dinner with them, drinking wine with them, sharing conversation.

They are GOOD people. Not goody-goody types or one-dimensional caricatures of virtue, but decent people yearning for satisfaction in both love and vocation. These two artists are falling in love. I am glad to be sharing their journey.”

Lindsay Edmunds, Pennsylvania

My novel “An Uncommon Family” is now at the editing stage. One of the characters also appears in my published novel “Love of a Stonemason.” Both books, however, are independent from each other and can be read in any order.

The following is a blurb and the first chapter. This is a work in progress and there will certainly be changes. Bur for now: enjoy and leave a comment, if you wish. Feedback highly appreciated!

The working title is:

A chance meeting between a single middle-aged woman, a widower, and a semi-orphaned child in the city of Zurich, Switzerland, brings together three people who grapple with a past of loss and betrayal. Six-year old Karla Bocelli, who lost her mother and grandmother in a car crash, has a hard time accepting the reality of death. Anna Frei, her aunt and guardian, struggles with the shocking deception by her former husband and her shattered confidence in men, and Jonas Bergman, artist and teacher, mourns the death of his wife.

Through their common concern for the welfare of the talented but troubled child, Anna and Jonas become close friends and eventually develop feelings for each other that go beyond friendship. However, when Anna discovers a sinister secret in Jonas’s past, which reminds her of the cowardly behavior of her former husband, her growing confidence in him is shattered. While the two adults have come to an impasse, young Karla, who wishes nothing more than having an intact family with Jonas and Anna as parents, decides to take matters into her own hands. With the help of her friend Maja, an experienced schemer, she develops a plan to bring the two uncooperative adults back together. The plan, however, has serious flaws and as it begins to unravel, Karla is forced to learn some difficult lessons.

An Uncommon Family is a story about loss and betrayal as well as the power of love and forgiveness.

Sounds interesting? Here is the first chapter, still in draft stage, so it will most likely encounter some changes.

     Karla took another lick from her ice-cream cone, then turned around and peered through the window of the art shop, where her aunt picked up two framed pictures. When she looked back at the sidewalk, her breath caught.
     “Mama?” she whispered.
     She saw the woman only from behind, but the bounce in her step, the long, reddish-blond hair flowing down her back, swaying left and right, the tall, slender figure–it must be her mother. She tossed the rest of the ice cream into the trashcan, got up, and ran after the woman.
     “Mama!” she called, as the woman got ready to cross the street. The light turned from blinking red to solid red, just as the woman reached the other side. Karla rushed after her, barely aware of the honking around her or of the shrill warning-bell of the blue-and-white street car. She heard someone yell at her but by then she had arrived at the other side. The woman was walking along the river toward the Lake of Zurich.
     “Mama, wait!” Karla bumped into someone.
     “Watch it, kiddo.” A man stepped aside.
     “Mama . . .”
     The woman finally turned around and looked back, scanning the people behind her, then walked on. Karla stopped dumb-founded. It was the face of a stranger.
     A wave of despair washed over her. Not believing that she could have been so wrong, she started to run again. She didn’t see the slight indentation in the pavement. As she fell, she barely noticed the searing pain in her knees; the disappointment hurt more. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed. Mama would have helped her. Mama would have picked her up, hugged her, even sang a little tune to her to make her feel better. But her mother was gone.
     “Are you hurt, honey?” a dark voice said. Karla felt a hand on her back. “Come on, let me see.”
     A pair of strong arms lifted her up. She looked into a face with a grey-white beard, and kind, blue eyes below thick tufts of eyebrows. The man was tall and sturdy, with wildish white hair. He reminded her of Saint Nicholas. But it was summer and Saint Nicholas only appeared in December.
     “Are you here alone?” he asked. “Where’s your mother?”
     The question brought a new flood of tears. “I thought it was Mama.” Karla managed to say, her chest heaving with sobs.
     “Karla, what happened? Why did you run away?” Aunt Anna came rushing toward her, clutching her purse and a large package. “I thought I’d lost you. Jesus, what happened to your knees?” She bent down, put the package on the concrete and examined Karla’s legs. Brushing a strand of wavy brown hair out of her face, she peered at the man with penetrating grey-blue eyes, the color of ice. “What’s going on here?”
     “I just happened to walk by when she fell,” he explained. “She said something about looking for her mother. Are you her mother?”
     Anna shook her head. “No, I’m her aunt. Her mother . . . died half a year ago.”
     “I’m so sorry.” The old man gently touched Karla’s cheek. “But she thought she saw her mother.”
     Anna sighed. “She still hasn’t accepted the truth.” She turned to Karla. “Tell me what happened, sweetie?”
     Karla told her in-between sobs that a woman had walked by who looked exactly like her mama.
     “But you know, that’s not possible, don’t you?” Aunt Anna hugged her. Karla leaned her face against Anna’s chest and poured her sorrow into her sweater. It was soft but didn’t smell like her mama’s. Anna waited for her to calm down. “We have to take care of your knees.”
     “There’s a pharmacy right over there? I’m sure they have something to clean the wound and some bandages. May I?” Saint Nicholas gave Anna an inquiring look.
     Anna nodded and the man lifted Karla up. His thick hair tickled her cheek. Karla wrinkled her nose. He gave off a whiff of smoke, which reminded her of Anna’s wood stove. It felt a little comforting.
     At the pharmacy, a friendly lady took care of Karla’s knees. She wiped them clean, trying not to hurt Karla, who flinched and gave an occasional sob. “Sorry, hon, but we don’t want it to get infected.”
     While the woman bandaged Karla’s legs, Anna unwrapped the package she had been carrying. She handed Karla one of the pictures and held the other one up for her to see. “Don’t they look great?”
     Karla nodded with a weak smile. They did look nice. She barely recognized them again behind the glass and surrounded by a fine wooden frame. One of them showed a woman, sitting on a chair and holding a little girl in her arm. The woman had long reddish-brown hair and the girl’s hair was black. They were sitting in front of a house. The stones in the wall had an irregular shape, they looked a little bit like cobble-stones. It had taken Karla a while to make them look right. The other picture showed a large tree with large purple and cream-colored blossoms. It was the chestnut tree in front of Karla’s old home. She had painted the pictures with her favorite pastel pens.
     “They’re gorgeous,” Saint Nicholas said in his deep voice. “Who painted those?”
     “Karla did,” Aunt Anna said.
     Saint Nicholas starred at her, then at the pictures, then at Karla. “How old is she?”
     “Six,” Karla said, brushing the last tears off her face. Anna handed her a Kleenex.
     “And she painted those by herself, without help?” The man squinted as he scanned the pictures. The wrinkles on his forehead and around his eyes deepened. He truly did look like Saint Nicholas.
     “Yes,” Anna said.
     “This child is very talented. Does she get any instruction?”
     “I’m actually looking for a teacher for her. She loves to draw and paint. If it was up to her, she’d do it all day long. And it seems to help her with . . . you know, the loss.”
     “Amazing.” Saint Nicholas shook his head and continued to scan the pictures. “Well, I happened to be a painter myself. I also teach a few children.” He looked at Karla and Anna with a serious face. “I’d love to have her as a student.”
     “I’ll think about it. That would be great,” Anna said.
     “Why don’t you check me out.” The man handed Anna a small card. “I have a website, too, with some links that give you a little more information. I finally broke down and tackled the internet with the help of a friend. I guess it’s almost a must in today’s world.” He laughed in his deep, sonorous voice. Then he became serious. “Whatever you decide, you don’t want a talent like this go to waste.”
     Anna studied his card. “Very interesting, Mr. Bergman.”
     “Call me Jonas,” the man said.
     “Anna,” Karla’s aunt said as the two shook hands.
     “You’re not Saint Nicholas?” Karla asked, surprised.
     Aunt Anna and the man laughed. “No, I’m sorry. You think I look like him?” He brushed through his wavy white hair.
     Karla nodded. “But you wouldn’t come in summer, would you?” She looked down at her neatly wrapped knees. The talk of drawing and painting had pulled her out of her deep misery. “Are you going to teach me?”
     The man smiled at her. “You talk this over with your aunt, all right?” Then he glanced at his watch. “Oops. I guess I missed my appointment.”
     “I’m so sorry,” Anna said. “We caused you all this trouble.”
     “Don’t worry. No problem at all.” He bent down and put a hand on Karla’s shoulder. “And, Karla, I know how much it hurts. I lost my dear wife a few years ago. We were together for over twenty years. I still miss her. But I can promise you, things will get better with time.”
     Karla took a deep breath and nodded. She had heard the words many times before. “Mejra lost her mother, too.”
     “Mejra is a friend of hers, a girl from Croatia,” Anna explained.

     At home, in their house in a small town near Zurich, Aunt Anna fixed lunch. She heated up the left-over bean and vegetable soup and made grilled cheese sandwiches with tomatoes. The smell of food awakened Karla’s appetite. She was quiet and thoughtful but no longer desperate.
     “He was a nice man,” she said, folding the colorful paper napkins she had made herself with potato stamps.
     “Would you like to take drawing and painting lessons from him?” Anna poured the soup into bowls and slid the toasted sandwiches onto the plates.
     Karla nodded. “Yeah, that’d be cool.”
     “Cool, huh?” Anna smiled and gave the girl a hug.

Great news: My novel just got published as paperback. It’s available at Amazon.

It turned out really great. I formatted and designed it myself with the help of my artist friend, Susan Deming, who also provided the photo and the design for the front cover. Those of you who were kind enough to write a review on Amazon, based on the Kindle version, will get a complementary, personally signed copy of the paperback book.

I think I’m now not only an Indie author but a micro Indie publisher. The company name is Bookworm Press (which fits me perfectly).

I am also featured on a new blog for independent authors. In addition, I was interviewed at Jess C Scott’s author blog. Drop by and have a look. There are some very interesting authors and books there.

Oh, and don’t forget to click the FOLLOW button on the right!